One conference right after the other, I return to the ASTR American Society for Theatre Research Conference between November 14–17, this year in Seattle, WA on the theme “Ecologies of Time and Change.” I’ll discuss my paper “Large Production, Big History: The Actor-Network Dramaturgy of Good Bye Mister Freud through Space and Time” during the “Big Histories: Experimental Methods for Tracking Change Across Bodies, Generations, and Geographies in Performance” Working Session.
To illustrate the weave of human and non-human actors converging over long stretches of space and time, I look at the interconnected transatlantic networks of Good Bye Mister Freud (Paris, 1974), a large-cast “tango-opera” devised by French director Jérôme Savary and queer Argentine playwright Copi for the Grand Magic Circus, Savary’s company. From the vantage point of this sprawling, melodramatic, humorous show involving a heroine’s journey from the Tsar’s Russia to NYC and the birth of psychoanalysis, I trace the genealogies of actors that influenced Savary’s and Copi’s movements around the globe until their meeting in Paris, and consequently contributed to the production’s materialization. By tracking the lineage of extra-aesthetic actions, I show how France and Argentina themselves, with their complex political histories, became contributing actors to the dramaturgy of the Copi-Savary-Grand Magic Circus production.
